The man who never was: Grogan

As far as this blog goes, I have many things on my to-do list; one of which is to try and go back and identify all of the former Beavers who appear on multiple websites as just a last name.

Today's name, ___ Grogan, is mentioned on three sites that I know of, including Baseball Reference...

Not a lot of information to go on there, huh? I'm sure that it won't always be the case, but thankfully today's name took very little research to find.

Let's start with what has to be the source for this mysterious "Grogan".

The Salt Lake Tribune 5/8/22

The Beavers played a doubleheader against Seattle on May 7th, 1922. This box score appeared in the following day's Salt Lake Tribune. One can clearly see a "Grogan" listed as having pitched in the first game. However, the summary doesn't mention a "Grogan", instead showing that Walt Leverenz went seven innings, and Harvey Freeman, not this mysterious "Grogan", relieved him for the final two.

This unto itself could prove to be confusing if it were the only available box score for this game, but less than a minute's worth of searching yields multiple examples from other papers, none of which show a "Grogan" as having pitched in this particular game. 

One correct example from the Oakland Tribune 5/8/22

This, along with the correct information appearing in the Salt Lake Tribune's own Summary, is enough to prove that there wasn't, and never would be, a "Grogan", who played for the Beavers.

Even if someone wanted to play devil's advocate, and say that every other papers box score was wrong. It would have been highly unusual for a player, especially a pitcher, to have appeared in only one game less than two months into the season. Doubly so for a pitcher who, if he existed, gave up no runs in his only two innings of work. One could try to say "Oh, but maybe he was injured?". Sure, but then it would've been mentioned. Injuries were always mentioned. 

The 1922 season wasn't a good one for the Beavers (87-112), and a handful of players were brought in for management to get a look at during the latter part of the season, when it was clear that they would be finishing in last place. However, as of May 8th, they were only 11-17, and no team in those days would've been giving up on the season that early, and therefor would not have been bringing in an unknown to pitch only two innings of relief work. Such things just didn't happen.

"Grogan" was clearly just a typo, and yet, that "source" alone seems to have been enough to get "his" name added to the list of former Beavers on multiple websites. For my sake, or anyone else out there who's contemplating doing the same research, I sure hope that the rest of the mystery names will prove this easy to identify. 

P.S. If anyone reading this has any pull with Baseball Reference, maybe you could get them to remove this name from their site. It might make things a little easier for folks in the future.